On arriving back in England, despite the warm summer rays of the sun, the world seemed grey; as though nothing had changed, but everything had changed. The people seemed in a hurry. They seemed to rush past Zoe without glancing at her. Each person, their own little impenetrable bubble oblivious to everyone else.

It was Zoe's first day back at work. She could have had longer, and despite Max's protestations that she should stay at home, she was desperate to regain some sense of normality. As she slipped into her green and black dress for the first time in a while, she felt as though she were putting on her Doctor skin – as though her covering would give her some sort of strength that could get her through the day.

As she stepped into the ED, Max closely behind, she realised that she had missed her work. She had missed the people she knew and loved, missed the security of having control, and being the 'well' one. Hey, she'd even missed her arguments with Connie. Well, just a bit. She smiled a smile. She hadn't done that for a while without thinking about it first. It made her feel better to smile, like a person. It wasn't the ED's fault, what had happened to that man's son. It was a tragedy, but a tragedy they'd seen a hundred times before and would see a hundred times again… it didn't make it easier, but there was no choice but to think about it like that. Otherwise, it became her fault, and it wasn't.

"Let's go"

Tess and Charlie were treating her delicately. She wasn't sure if they'd known exactly what had happened, but clearly something had been said. She was to stay on non-urgent cases, cubicles for a while. Zoe quite liked cubicles for now. Her first case back was a little girl who had cut her hand and needed suturing. Her mum had gone to get a coffee and as she hadn't returned, Zoe was forced to distract her by talking to her while she worked on her delicate hand. She was a very sweet girl – Lana, who hugged a toy giraffe close to her chest, refusing to let it go. "What's the giraffe's name?" asked Zoe. "He doesn't have a name. He was a present from my granny" the girl informed her, removing her thumb from her mouth temporarily.

"Aww, that's nice, was it. Sorry, he, a birthday present?"

"Yep, I was 5 on sat-ur-day." She enunciated the word carefully and Zoe smiled in response.

"Were you really? Did you have a party?"

"Na-uh, granny took me to the zoo" she stated, as if this should have been blindingly obvious to Zoe.

"Annd, which was your favourite animal? Was it the giraffe?"

"Yep, but I liked da monkeys too. They had red bottoms. Oh, and the hippos. They were smelly. We could just see their heads. They were swimming in pooey water. I think the zoo man was just coming to clean it. That's what granny said".

Zoe chuckled at Lana's anecdote, she remembered Sharice, how she'd loved to visit the zoo. What fun they'd had there. She wondered what Sharice was up to now. She'd be, 12? 13? It was strange, how in some things time moved on in the flash of an eye, and in others, it seemed stuck, unmovable and solid.

"There we are. All done". Zoe told Lana as she looked down at her hand. "I'll go and find somebody to come and talk to you until mummy gets back, yeah?" She smiled down at the beaming face and went to ask a disgruntled Robyn to keep an eye on her.

The morning was largely uneventful and past by quickly and before Zoe knew it, she was in the staff room with Max for lunch. It was a lovely sunny day and she presumed that everyone else was outside enjoying the heat.

"Sooo, how's your day been?" Max enquired after neither had said anything for a while.

"Good, really good" Zoe smiled at him, and he wasn't quite sure whether she was telling the truth. "No, honestly, it's been great to be back. Met a really cute kid this morning, she had a giraffe that she wouldn't let go of". Max smiled at her, glad that her morning had been cheered up by a child. "Yeah? I'm presuming you mean a toy one? Bit weird, otherwise" he joked, "No… a real one. Yeah, she had it on a lead around its foot. Did you not see it? It was quite the talk of the department? 'Bout 10.30ish? Borrowed it from the zoo". Zoe tried to keep the story alive but her smile gave her away, and both of them chuckled, the joke made funnier by the fact that the 'banter' that had underpinned their relationship was rearing its head again, that they could share some joy once more.

"How's your day been?" she asked him. Max smiled. "Well, that would be telling". She smiled at him "What, too difficult to answer?" She mirrored one of the first conversations they'd had, all that time ago. "Ha ha ha. Fuuuunnnyy" Max faked annoyance. "No, just, you know, life of a porter's never dull and all that" He tried to make his morning sound as though it had consisted of pushing beds upstairs to cardio., upstairs again to maternity, downstairs to the morgue… that hadn't been so great, but nothing out of the ordinary, really. He sensed her smile as he was desperately trying to think of something interesting about his day. "What?" "Nothing. Just… thank you" "For what?" He was a bit bemused by her gratitude. "Just for being you… for making my life more interesting" she winked at him.

They both sat in silence, both knowing what the other was thinking but not wanting to be the first to speak about it. The staffroom in the hospital probably wasn't the place, anyway. "Shall we do the test later?" Zoe's quiet whisper cut the cheerful atmosphere like knife. Somehow, the very action of voicing the words running through their minds had made the situation so real, so desperate. "I mean, don't worry, I might not be pregnant, but I'm late and I'm never late, and even if I am, it might not be his. It could be yours, I think… yeah, it's typical, isn't it, I tried for ages to have baby before and I couldn't, and now, maybe I can, just at the wrong moment, with someone… someone… like that". She smiled a smile at him, trying to convince him that she was OK.

He smiled back, amused at her rambling but hurt at the pain and worry that was evident. "Zoe. Look at me". She refused to meet his gaze, afraid of what he might say, and convinced that someone would barge through the door at any moment and interrupt their very private moment. "Baby, look at me." He told her again as he crouched down before her and took her shaking hands in his, holding her fingers tightly. "OK, so there are two things that could happen here. Number one. You're not pregnant. That's fine, we can deal with that." He smiled at her as she squeezed his hands gently in response. "Number two. You are pregnant." She flinched at this option. "With my baby, OK, not his, mine. I love you, and I love phantom foetus" He told her, eliciting a small attempt at a smile. "I promise, hand on heart and all that, that if you are pregnant, he or she will be nothing other than ours, OK. Yours and mine".

She smiled at him, a full, beaming smile. "I love you so much" she told him, her face wet with tears as she leaned down to kiss him. "But let's just see first, before you get too excited, eh?!"

Hope that was OK! Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews :D x